Farming of Cambridgeshire. 
71 
But the period in which it comes fallow depends much upon 
the clean state of the land, for it is rarely that it requires rest 
from exhaustion. It is extraordinary how well wheat succeeds 
after oats ; and by the system of claying, the land is so conso- 
lidated that not only very large crops of wheat are grown, but of 
good quality also. The great difficulty they have to contend 
with is in getting rid of the oats that shell out on the land at 
harvest time ; these they endeavour to make vegetate by har- 
rowing and dressing the land. One plan by which they might 
easily get rid of them is one they dare not adopt — that is, by 
skeleton-ploughing or by the Kentish plan of broad sharing, 
which would too much loosen the soil, and their great aim and 
object is to keep the land as whole and close as possible. 
Great numbers of the Irish, after having assisted in reaping the 
early wheats in our warmer and earlier part of the county, flock 
into the Fens to assist them in their harvest operations ; and a 
new-reclaimed territory like this is not yet sufficiently peopled 
for all the work required at the busiest periods of the year. On 
the uplands or skirt land they pursue nearly a similar course of 
cropping, but not so exhausting, as they are enabled to grow large 
crops of beans, of which great breadths are annually grown. Oats 
succeed the fallow, then wheat, then beans, wheat, oats, seeds, 
wheat, oats, fallow, or fallow after wheat ; but they vary so 
much, according to the strength and cleanliness of the land, 
that it is impossible to describe a plan or course that is generally 
adopted. 
Claying. 
This is done by opening furrows in the field intended to be 
clayed, about 14 yards apart, parallel to each other. The work- 
man commences at one end by sinking a hole about 5 feet long, 
and about 4 feet wide : this hole is sunk perpendicularly ; and 
when he arrives at the clay, which varies in depth from the 
surface from 2 to 7 or 10 feet, he throws out about three spit, 
which is about 3 feet deep, of this clay on each side of the hole, 
half the clay on one side and half on the other. The vegetable 
matter that is dug out of the first hole is spread on the surface of 
the land ; he then proceeds to sink holes or pits all up the fur- 
rows, about 1 foot from each other, so that this space thus left 
acts as a wedge to prevent the sides of the drain from slipping in. 
In digging the second hole, the peat earth is thrown into the first 
hole, and thus the moor or hears-muck dug out of each hole is 
made to fill up the preceding one. The tools used for this work 
are — a small light shovel or spoon, with very thin sharp cutting 
edges, and about 12 to 14 inches deep — a light wooden shovel, 
made as a scoop, for throwing out the water as it runs into the 
